23 Therapists Reveal the Shocking Signs They Knew Their Relationships Were Doomed—and How They Handled It
Ah, relationships—those complex dance routines of communication, patience, and respect where, sometimes, one wrong step can lead to a full-on tango of arguments. Ever wonder how couples therapists decode the cryptic signals when two people just aren’t making it work? Spoiler alert: it’s not all kumbayas and kumballs. Sometimes, even the most seasoned marriage counselors hit that moment of clarity when they realize, yep, this ship might just be sinking. But how do they break that news without breaking the couple? And what’s the wisdom from the trenches of therapy offices where love, frustration, and reality collide? Bored Panda dug into some brutally honest and surprisingly candid Reddit confessions from therapists who’ve seen it all – from “we can fix this” to “we’re just pretending to fix this.” If you think love conquers all, brace yourself for the tough truths about what really keeps a relationship afloat—and when it’s time to let go.
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Relationships are a lot of hard work! You need proper communication, lots of patience, and tons of respect for one another if you plan on making things work in the long term. However, there are times when folks can’t seem to work out their differences and argue constantly. That’s when some of them might reach out to couples therapists or marriage counselors for help.
Though these professionals help many of their clients, some of them seem nearly beyond their aid. Bored Panda has collected some of the most open and honest therapists’ posts on Reddit about how they handle cases when couples have deeply troubled relationships that they might feel won’t last. Scroll down for their stories.
I would note that in my training we are taught that it is unethical to continue couple’s therapy with a relationship where one partner is abusing the other. My SIL and her former husband were in this situation (he was/is abusive) – their therapist basically told her that he couldn’t continue working with them because her husband was abusive and she should leave him. I give a lot of props to that therapist since this was in a highly conservative/religious area where divorce is really frowned upon, and this was a specifically religious therapist.
Not a therapist here, but training to be one.
My professor was a couples therapist for 25 years. She said on the first session she would take each person in her office separately and ask them “on a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you want to work on this relationship and stay together?”
She said that she could construct a treatment plan based on where the numbers were relative to each other. So her plan would look different if a couple answered like 8&9 than if they looked like 1&2. She said the saddest were when it was like 1&10 because then it was more about helping that person who was a 10 slowly accept that things weren’t going to work out.
In all my years of marriage counseling, I’ve realized the one sign that a couple won’t make it. They show contempt for each other. Not even hatred or anger, just disdain. Eg eye-rolling, diminishing one another’s points etc.
Therapist here… In my experience strong healthy relationships are built on two very important qualities: trust and respect. Love is not included in these qualities because love is not a determiner of a strong/healthy relationship.
Dysfunctional relationships are still possible among people who love each other. And loving someone isn’t the only reason to stay with a person. Many of the clients that I’ve worked with in the past who are in very dysfunctional relationships have actually stayed solely because of love, but continue to struggle in those relationships because they lack trust and respect.
Without respect and trust most relationships are doomed to struggle or fail. For the couples that I’ve worked with I always assess for whether or not trust and respect is present. And then build treatment goals around seeing if it possible to develope those qualities. If they are not willing or able, then in most cases those relationships are likely to end.
Not personally, but I did have a professor tell a story of doing this in a single session.
Basically when he was working as a couples therapist he had one couple who came in for their very first session and the wife immediately starts going off on him. She tells the therapist that the relationship is never going to work, she wants to break up, and the only reason she was there was because her husband insisted. The husband, meanwhile, sits there quietly for thirty minutes while the wife explains all the reasons she can’t stand him anymore.
Eventually the therapist leans back and says something to the effect of: “You’re right. If you don’t want to be in the relationship there’s nothing I can do, nor do I think I should try to talk you out of it. If you don’t want therapy, maybe you would be better off apart.”
